Just Shit

A) Yes, deaf people can be silent, but a lot of times they’re not. Especially when they’re deaf from birth or a young age like Maya clearly was, there’s still vocalization that occurs in communication, it’s just less defined than if someone learned to speak before coming deaf or if they were put through a bunch of speech therapy sessions (which, that’s a whole other can of cultural worms—some have had positive experiences with it, many have had negative experiences with it, and a lot of Deaf individuals find simply find speech therapy useless and a waste of time since signing and writing are far more natural, but I digress). Because it’s different for everyone, I’d be more willing to give them a pass for this, although I will say it’s odd too because her father didn’t seem the type that would force her into speech therapy. Anywho, the other point annoys me more—

B) Do you know how hard it is to speak/sign two different languages at the same time? ASL and English have very different grammatical and syntactical conventions and it’s just ridiculous to me like—especially if the person you’re communicating with is deaf, it’s way easier to just use sign language to communicate. The only reason they have the person speaking is for the hearing audience and it’s painfully obvious in a fourth-wall-breaking, take-you-out-of-the-experience kind of way.

I suppose if you’re using SEE (Signed Exact English) or something, a hearing person might speak aloud while signing because that’s not a signed language with its own grammar so much as a manually coded form of English that just uses ASL signs (and some other ones so one can sign exactly how English would be spoken—I.e., SEE has a sign for “very” while in ASL you just show the intensity of the word with your expression and manner of signing). But speaking while signing like that, in my experience, tends to be a convention more of people just learning how to sign (which would not be the case for Kazi, who’s clearly been interpreting for Maya for a while). Or they are an interpreter and want to communicate with hearing and deaf people at the same time. But with Kazi, most of the time he signs with Maya it’s either a private conversation he wouldn’t have interest in sharing with the tracksuit goons, or they’re alone together anyways. And that’s why it’s just so 🤨 “really?” for me.

If you’re going to have Deaf individuals and signing in television/film, please actually have the signing. Frame it correctly so we can see the signs instead of focusing up on their face and cutting out their hands (that’s a whole other issue I have with it GAH). Let them communicate in the language most natural to them instead of constantly catering to a hearing audience.

MERRY CHRISTMAS,MY LOVELY FOLLOWERS! THANK YOU FOR STAYING WITH ME THIS YEAR! I LOVE YOU ALL!

I moved on. You moved on. We’ve gone down different paths for so long. We made choices. I chose Wendy. That’s her family down there. We care about each other, you know? You know, you don’t always get the dream house, but you get awfully close.

And the update

I've been reading about the candle factory collapse and it's just nightmarish.